Guardian

Okaaayyy. so here we go. Trying something new. A change of perspective ;P hehe. Enjoy.


Chapter Nineteen


~Interlude~


I moaned as my body shuddered tiredly back into human form. A hint of dawn spiced the chilled air as I collapsed in the pile of bodies collecting on the frostbitten grass. My breath escaped in a satisfied sigh, the shared heat fighting off the cold nipping at my furless flesh.

Someone was snoring softly and felt the involuntary twitch of my ear as it tried to follow the sound. It stayed motionless, however, immobile in its new fixed position.

Exhaustion pulled at my body like a weight, telling me I never wanted to get up from where I had fallen. I thought I couldn’t care less if I never moved again…then the darkness melted into dreams.

…………………..

My paws dug into the earth as I gave the rabbit chase. It was clever, darting in and out of brambles. No matter how fast I ran I always seemed to be a hair’s breadth away. Even so, I wouldn’t give up. Its scent teased my nose, tickled my tongue, and filled my head with thoughts of the feast. In a burst of speed it darted ahead, burrowing under a mess of thorns.

I snapped my jaws, rumbling in irritation. I hadn’t come this far for it to end up like this. I clawed at the earth, digging, pushing my snout under the barbed vines, and struggled until my shoulders fit. I wriggled and writhed, losing a bit of fur and flesh to the weeds, but I emerged, ready to continue the hunt.

But the rabbit wasn’t running anymore. It was sitting frozen a few yards ahead, back to the opening of a shadowed crack in the mountain. I snorted, the sound loud in the sudden quiet. My ears twitched, listening for any sound in the quiet.

There was nothing.

I shook out my fur, trying to dispel the sudden uneasy tingle of my skin. I circled the rabid from the right, trying heard it away from that dark space, which some instinct told me was not somewhere I wanted to follow. I snarled, snapping my haws as I closed in.

It didn’t move, not even a whisker. I slowed my approach, my insides screaming at me to go no further.

The smell of rot caught the breeze and I snorted, trying to clear my nostrils. I growled at the stupid rabbit. Why didn’t the damn thing move?

With a twitch it suddenly complied, but not in the way I was expecting. It slumped to the grass, its shoulders heaving in labored breathing. The tang of blood rose in the air.

I crept closer; lowering my belly to the ground, ready to snatch it away. Ready to leave this place.

A voice hissed through the crack, and I jumped, nerves strung tight.

“Get away dog.”

I glanced at the rabbit, it pale limbs twisted beneath it, fragile as it shivered in the cold. Its eyes flickered, fighting to remain open. Its pink lips opened and closed like it was trying to say something.

“She’s broken. She’s mine,” the voice whispered, a heated stink rising from the crack. I growled, reaching out and wrapping a hand around the rabbit’s thin wrist, barely holding a hint of life.

“Mine,” I said, glaring angrily into the dark.

I pulled her closer, tugging that damaged body away from the stink. I hadn’t come this far for it to end like this.

High-pitched laughter leaked from the shadows.

“Oh, you think so, boy?”

“Yes,” I replied. Certain.

She shivered, breath rattling and ending with an unnervingly wet cough. I rubbed a hand over her cold shoulder, putting heat and life back into the deadening flesh. Her eyes were open, looking at me, almost silver in the morning sun. Her lips began to move again, stained at the corners with her own blood.

I leaned closer, the tantalizing scent drawing me in. Her breath brushed my cheek as she whispered, but I still couldn’t make out the words.

The laughter peeled out again, “You think you can understand the answer? Foolish child. You’re not ready.”

I ignored him, moving my eyes to her mouth, trying to read the words, but my stomach rumbled as her blood salted the wind. My tongue grew wet and I licked my lips listening to the soft flutter of her heart. The feel of her soft yielding flesh worked against me and I couldn’t stop myself as I lowered my head for a taste.

The warm wet heat of her mouth was delicious, spiced with a certain coppery tang. I slipped my tongue between her lips, searching out that ruby elixir as my mouth watered and my belly ached with its emptiness.

“Fool!”

The word broke the spell, and my head lifted. And she was gone, just a red smear on the grass.

I choked as the foulness in the air tripled and the mountain face seemed to tremble with the echoes of the word.

Her whimpers echoed lowly from the black. For long heartbeats I was frozen, unable to move, and then I heard it again. The faceless voice that made my guts quiver with revulsion.

“Hello, child.”

Thump. Th-thump.

And then she screamed—


I twitched, eyes open and blinking, as the echoes of my nightmare seemed to carry on the wind. I swallowed, trying to calm the erratic thudding of my heart. I looked at the sky, at the pinkening horizon rising from behind the trees. I hadn’t been asleep long, maybe an hour, but I sat up anyway. I shook my head, trying to clear the familiar face from behind my eyes and the unease building between my shoulder blades.

My eyes roved over the ground, searching for a distraction, and I found that I wasn’t the only one awake. I could make out Chris’s familiar back silhouetted against the coming day. He was poised, tense, searching…for what?

I stood and walked over to him, catching his nostrils quiver in the light breeze.

“What is it?” I asked.

His brows drew down further and his lips twitched as he shook his head. “I don’t know…I—”

He broke off, pulling air through his nose roughly. With a grimace he shook his head again. “Nothing,” he mumbled. “Just a bad dream.”

I grunted. It must be an epidemic.

My mouth quirked. Yeah. It had to be a disease if she was in my dream.